


Squid Hunt

by Omoly



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, I am so sorry, I'm just really bad at them..., Warning: bad rap, doesn't contain as many fish puns as it should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:52:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omoly/pseuds/Omoly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meenah convinces Tavros to help her take on a Horrorterror and they bond a bit along the way.</p>
<p>Takes place in the void when the two of them are treasure hunting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Squid Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [specialsari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/specialsari/gifts).



“Wake up small fry. We’re going squid hunting.”

“What?” Was all Tavros had time to say before Meenah flipped over his hammock sending him tumbling to the floor of the ship.

“You. Me. Hunting a squid.” Meenah said as if it were the single most self-explanatory concept in the entirety of paradox space. “Now let’s get moving!”

Tavros scowled and picked himself off the floor. At this point in his (un)life he was used to being bossed around, but that didn’t mean he liked it or that he was willing to go along with it without protest. “No, I don’t think I’m going to be doing that.”

“Aw come on! Why the shell not?” 

“Because you haven’t really explained yourself, at all, or what you mean by squid hunting, or why you want me to do it with you. So, before I decide whether I want to do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing, I’d like all of that additional information given to me.”

Meenah stared at him for a bit before sighing “Alright, fine. I’ll tell you a little more about what’s going down.”

This caught Tavros off-guard. He wasn’t expecting Meenah to actually agree to his request. Whenever he asked Vriska for anything she either ignored him or yelled at him for being stupid. 

“Here’s the situation: you know those huge ass tentacle monsters that float around out here in the dream bubbles?” 

“You mean, the horrorterrors?”

“Yeah those assholes” Meenah growled and pointed at her face, which Tavros suddenly realized was missing a certain something “One of them, whom I can only assume is the biggest asshole of them all, stole my glasses! So now we gotta track that thieving mollusk down and get em’ back!”

Tavros took a moment to process what he’d just heard before answering “Okay, wow, so that was pretty informative, thank you”

Meenah beamed with pride “You’re welcome, so let’s get this hunt started!”

“No, not yet, there are still two questions that need to be answered.”

Meenah sighed again, louder and more exasperated “Oh my cod, what?”

“First question: How did a Horror Terror steal your glasses?”

“That’s not important.” Meenah mumbled. 

“Pretty sure it is, actually, did it just sort of reach out a tentacle and grab them?”

“Yes! I mean, not exactly! Kind of?”

Tavros raised an eyebrow “Kind of?” 

“Alright let me be honest with you: I was clownfishing around on the deck and I kind of tripped and dropped them overboard and they landed in one of those squid guys gross slimy mouths!” Meenah growled “I tried to jump overboard to get them back, but Aranea held me back long enough for the squishy douchebag to swim away! So-”

“Fly” Tavros interjected.

Meenah blinked, confused “Huh?”

“Fly” Tavros repeated “Horror Terrors don’t swim, they fly, there isn’t any water out here in the void, ”

“It doesn’t matter! The point is it took my glasses and I want them back!”

“Okay, fine, I got that, but that leads into my second question: Why do you want me to help you?”

“Because everyone else already refused to go with me.” Meenah replied bluntly.

Tavros had never been less surprised by anything in his entire life or afterlife. 

“Really?” He responded, deadpan.

“Yeah! I know! I couldn’t believe it either!” Meenah had somehow missed his sarcastic tone, or maybe she was just willfully ignoring it, sometimes it was hard to tell with her “Arenea said I should just let it go, which isn’t all that shocking considering she’s a chronic wet blanket. But then Vriska said she ain’t helping him either! That if I wanted revenge I was going to have to do it on my own time because she ain’t stopping this treasure hunt for nothing! Blind guy turned me down too, no surprises there that guy don’t wanna do a damn thing; and smiley Megido freaks me the fuck out. So, that just leaves you doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does, I guess”

Meenah clap her hand together and smiled eagerly. “So! Now that all your stupid pointless questions are answered are you FINALLY ready to go bust up a thieving squid jerk?” 

Tavros carefully considered his options “No I won’t go with you to bust it up-“  
“Lame!”

“-but I will come with you to talk to it.”

“…what?”

“I’ll help you, by talking to it, and getting it to give you your glasses back voluntarily.” Tavros explained. 

Meenah looked less than enthusiastic “Since when can those piles of tentacles and teeth TALK?”

“Well, they don’t talk to everybody, but they talk to me” Tavros said with a hint of pride.

“…Is it because you’re insane?”

“What? No! It’s because it’s because I have the ability to commune with fantastic beasts, that’s a thing I do.”  
“Are you sure? Because talking to tentacle monsters seems like the kind of shit an insane person would do.”

“I’m not insane.” Tavros grumbled “And, anyway, if anyone is insane, it’s you for wanting to fight a tentacle monster.”

“Nah man, that doesn’t make me insane. It makes me fucking awesome. Besides, not like I can die. Being a ghost and all.” Meenah said with a shrug.

“You can’t die, maybe, but, you can still get eaten.”

“So?”

“So, think about it, do you really want to find out what it feels like to be inside a horror terrors stomach?”  
This got Meenah’s attention “Ew, I actually hadn’t thought of that.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “gross”

“And then, after you’ve been in its’ stomach, it’s going to po-“

“EW! EW! EWWWWWWWWWWWW! BLEH!” Meenah gagged, cutting him off.

“Exactly, so, can you see how talking will probably be better, than fighting would be?”

Meenah bit her lip “I dunno man, talking isn’t really as cool as fighting.”

“It’s more cool than being poop”

Meenah shuddered “ugh, gross. Fine, we’ll do your talking idea. Just as long as I get my glasses back. Now shut your yap and follow me. We gotta be sneaky about this. If Aranea catches us she’ll throw a hissy fit.”

Tavros nodded then followed Meenah to one of the portholes. They slipped out (Meenah more easily than Tavros since he was a little bit chubbier than her) and flew off into the void. Normally He loved flying, but right now his mind was too busy to fully appreciate it. The main thought that kept running through his brain was ‘why am I doing this?’ It would have been easy to just say no and go back to sleep. Unlike Vriska Meenah actually seemed willing to give him a choice in whether or not he did something. But then maybe that was it, maybe the fact that he had a choice was why he wanted to help her. Up until now Tavros had more or less thought of Meenah as Vriska-with-braids. But maybe there was something more to her. Or maybe he just had Stockholm syndrome. It was hard to tell.

“So, know any sea shanties?” Meenah asked suddenly snapping Tavros out of thoughts.

“Huh?”

“Sea shanties, ya know any?”

“I thought we were supposed to be being quiet”

“I changed my mind, quiet is boring. ‘sides, we’re far enough from the ship that no one will hear us.”

“Uh, I don’t really sing, I mean, I used to do some slam poetry, but-“

“Then let’s do that!”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”  
It was a tempting offer, Tavros hadn’t had a chance to slam with anyone other than myself for an impossibly long time. But…

“Shouldn’t we be paying attention to our surroundings? Looking out for the Horror Terror that stole your glasses?”

“I already found that suckerfish, check it!” Meenah pointed to a pink blob off in the distance. 

“Are you sure that’s the right one?”

“Positive! None of the others are that color! And it’s moving extra slow, probably because it’s so slow and stupid. So, while we catch up with the big idiot, let’s slam a little!”

Tavros frowned and stared at the blob “Are you sure?”

“No shit I’m shore, now let’s get this beat rolling, Get on the ball stop your damn lolling. Jump in the water and wade in deep, no time for the shallows boy don’t make me weep”

Oh that was it. It was on now. Tavros was simply not the kind of troll who could walk away from a beat once it had been dropped. 

“Oh, Well I thought you were joking, but now you’re smoking, cause I’m bringing the fire on which you’ll be choking.”

“Ahahaha, oh so you think you’re hot stuff? Not just a wee baby minnow? Don’t think your tough, I’ll toss your ass out the window.”  
“Ohhhhh, yes! That’s the stuff!

“There’s more where that came from chumbucket!”

The rhythms continued, and they were truly terrible, but neither Tavros nor Meenah cared. It was fun. The most fun that Tavros’d had in a long time. He was so caught up in the beats that he didn’t even notice they had reached the pink blob until they were right on top of it. They might have just kept on flying had the creature not let out a long trembling moan when they approached. The sound stopped both off them in their tracks.  
“Woah” Meenah muttered.

‘woah’ was probably the most accurate way to describe the creature that was floating beneath them. It was enormous, and almost entirely comprised of eyes. Several mouths opened and closed at random and long tendrils floated lazily at its side. Its twitchy pink skin seemed to be only semi-solid and gave off a faint eerie glow.

Meenah nudged Tavros gently in the ribs with her elbow “Well, go on. Talk to it. Tell it I want my glasses back.”

Tavros Swallowed. He was becoming increasingly ensure of his plan. The other Horrorterrors he had spoken to had been much farther away, and he hadn’t really communed to them any messages more complex than “Hello”. But they had come so far…he had to at least try. He concentrated hard and managed to establish a connection. The Horrorterror let out another series of elongated echoing moans.

“She says her name is Steven.” Tavros translated.  
Meenah made a face “Steven?”

“Yes, Steven, and, apparently, she’s having a bad day. Something strange is stuck in her throat and it’s bothering her, a lot.”

“I don’t see how that’s our problem.” Meenah scoffed.

“It’s kind of exactly our problem, your glasses are the thing stuck in her throat, I’m almost positive.”

“Ooooh” Meenah looked somewhat sheepish “So now what? Is she going to cough them up?”

“That’s what she’s been trying to do, but it hasn’t been working, she says she needs our help, she wants us to, uh, oh, that’s, huh” Tavros suddenly frowned “That’s a weird request”

“What? What’s it want?”  
“She wants us to, well, she wants us to tickle her,”

There was full minute of silence before Meenah spoke “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah, she thinks she can shake your glasses out of her throat if she laughs, why would I possibly lie about that?”

There was another minute of silence, and then Meenah clenched her fists in determination “You know what? Fuck it, let’s do it. Let’s tickle this cod damn squid.”

They floated closer. Steven watched them with her many eyes. Meenah slowly extended a hand and tentatively brushed the surface of the skin with her fingertips.

“Huh” Meenah said in surprise “That actually feels kind of soft”

Tavros also reach out a hand to touch the fleshy surface and was equally surprised. He had expected the horrorterror to feel slimy and cold, but to his shock he discovered she was actually quite warm and covered in a fine, delicate fur. 

“You’re right, she’s very soft”

“It’s kind of weird.”

“Yeah, but then, this entire situation is kind of weird isn’t it?”

Meenah laughed “You can say that again.”

“This entire situation is kin-“

“Don’t actually say it again.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s cool” Meenah said with a slight smile “So, what now?”

“She says just keep petting her, she’s very ticklish, it shouldn’t take long”

Meenah and Tavros continued rubbing their hand over Stevens fur. Almost instantly Steven began admitting a low hum.

“What’s that?”

“Laughter, or, at least, the horrorterror version of it”

The humming grew louder and louder. It was strange, but not unpleasant. It sounded somewhat like a whale, and yet nothing like that at all. It was not a sound that could be described with words. After a few second Steven trembled and something small and pinkish flew out of one of her mouths.

“oh!” Tavros cried out excitedly “It’s out!” He flew towards the object followed by an equally thrilled Meenah. However, Meenah’s enthusiasm drained once they both reached the object. It was indeed her glasses, but they were covered in blue incandescent mucus.

“Fucking hell” She muttered.

Tavros didn’t notice her disgust he said a cheerful “Thank you!” to Steven as she floated off then turned to Meenah with a huge grin on her face “She was nice”

“Yeah” Meenah muttered has she tried (and failed) to wipe the mucus from the frames.

“I thought she would be scary, and you thought she was an asshole, but she wasn’t! I think there’s probably a lesson there, or something, but I’m not sure.”

“Uh-huh” Meenah suddenly realized she would never be able to wear these glasses again, ever. 

“This was fun, we should do something like this again sometime!”

Meenah turned to glare at Tavors. She wanted to yell at him, get rid of some of the frustration she felt over having her glasses ruined. But he just looked so damn happy, and she found her anger simply slipped away.

“Yeah, we should.” she said with a slight smile. When Tavros wasn’t looking Meenah tossed the ruined glasses over her shoulder. She would have to get a new pair, and never tell Tavros she had replaced them. That felt like the right thing to do, somehow.

“Do you want to slam some more?” Tavros asked as they floated back to the ship.

“For shore small fry, for shore”


End file.
